


Heirs to the desolation

by Keenir



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Drabbles, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Writing Exercise, making stuff up about Harad - sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-05 17:35:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some scenes which could follow the end of <span class="u">The Desolation Of Smaug</span>.</p>
<p>(granted, all of which will probably not happen in the third part of <span class="u">The Hobbit</span>, but these many outcomes are fun to imagine)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tauriel's Great Irony - the offer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tauriel intercepts Smaug en route to Laketown, and makes him an offer.

As he flew towards Laketown - which his eyes did tell him was in the same exact place it had been when he had passed through it and Dale, even down to which side of the lake it clung to - Smaug noticed a distinctive flag and banner waving in the air in a spot one could call a clearing even if one were Smaug-sized, with ease of movement and vision in all directions around it. Knowing the meaning of the banner and its flag, and doubting an Elf would change the meaning in such a short span of time as Smaug's slumber, he landed in the clearing. "Yes?" he asked the Elf woman.

"I am Tauriel," she said.

"The smell of Mirkwood clings patchily to you, as smoke does to Men and the forest does to Dwarves," Smaug said. "A curious thing, your claim."

She pounded the banner's pole into the ground. "Curious it may be, but I mean it entirely."

"And how do I know you are not serving Laketown by giving them time to assemble their arms and muster what force they can?" Smaug asked.

"Have you ever seen an Elf fight?" Tauriel. "Have you witnessed our speed and agility and fury at those who have crossed us?"

"Yes, your race are almost draconic. What answer, then?"

"I have called this meeting, thus this short measure of peace. Were the people of Laketown to violate this peace, I would move against them as surely you would."

"And shall," Smaug reminded her. "But this intrigues me. Continue, Elf. What would you say in this moment of peace before the abyss of fire which approaches?"

Unsure whether Smaug was referring to himself or to The Enemy, Tauriel said, "I would discuss with you the terms of negotiation."

"Negotiate? I am King Under The Mountain."

A smile quirking her lips, "And what king does not have vassals?"

Smaug blinked, and in his throat died the response he would have given to the answer he had expected to his stated title. "Laketown would submit?"

"When the other options are all forms of death, surely," Tauriel said. "Men tend to flock to life."

"Yes, they do; nor just Men. Very well then let us begin," Smaug said.

* * *

Others came to watch the proceedings. Small children and elderly of the race of Men. One handful of Dwarves, Kili among them.

There would still be sufficient treasure to rebuild Laketown five times over, but the vast bulk of Erebor's stores would remain in Smaug's possession. Much more wrangling had been required to settle the matter of tho whom the Arkenstone would call master, as that had been what brought the Dwarves here under Thorin in the first place, and woken Smaug.

"And should Laketown not accept my authority?" Smaug asked idly.

"There are things moving, things older and darker than yourself, great Smaug," Tauriel said. "As I said before, to refuse you would be to die, be it by your doing or the doing of others. Laketown will call upon you when all is dire, for you are dire, are you not?"

"Flattery. How like Barrel-Rider you are. And what assurance do I have that they will not move against me? Laketown now prosperous, or Oakenshield's Dwarves?"

"You have me," Tauriel stated.

"You, Elf?" Smaug asked. "Will your kin bring you aid with Dwarves charging at you? Will your kin avenge your death?"

Another stepped forward a step longer than Men could take. "Elves will come. I am Legolas, son of Thranduil, and this I say. Tauriel will not fall alone."

"So be it. And where will Tauriel be, that she is to be an assurance?"

"In the Mountain," she said. _I who urged the most and the strongest against keeping within our borders...I am offering to seal myself in with a dragon for longer than Men and Dwarves live._

"As entertaining as this has been, why should I accept this?" Smaug asks her. "You have spoken of kings and vassals, assuming that is my desire. What do you have to offer?"

"My company," Tauriel said.

"I sleep."

"Yes, your slumber is famed. But when you are not deep in the throes of rest, who do you speak with? Aside from yourself and intruders."

"This is what you offer, conversation?"

"What did you think I was offering?" Tauriel asks, her question both a challenge and a laugh at presumption.

Smaug too laughs. "Not what Men would have thought were they the recipients of such an offer."

"Nor shall they be. You are, Smaug the Mighty, Smaug the Long-Lived."

"A compliment from an Elf," Smaug noted. "Discussion is always welcome. But what will you do whilst I slumber?"

"I will go," Kili says, and several heads turn to look at him.

Tauriel's is one of those.

"If you have feelings for me, that I cannot help," Tauriel tells him. "I do have a feeling for you, Kili, but it is not love."

"You hate me?"

She smiles at him. "Were it hate, you would have died well before you reached Laketown. No, what I feel towards you is," and the Sindarin word slides from her tongue into the air Kili hears, followed by the same meaning in Quenya, and she translates: "a fellowship."

"Do fellowships go places together?" Kili asks.

"They do," and sees where he is taking this.

"Then let's go." Looking up at Smaug, Kili says to him, "I may not live as long as Dragons, and definately not as long as Elves, but I will give what years I have to this."

Smaug inquires of him, "Are you to be an assurance against Dwarven actions?"

Kili shrugs. "They can take it that way if they like. Not why I'm going, but they don't know that."

Smaug laughs. 


	3. Bribery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do you get the mighty dragon Smaug to stand with you against Sauron?

"No!" declared Thorin.

"I am Destroyer Of Cities, Eater Of Peoples," Smaug said. "Do you doubt?"

"We do not," Gandalf said.

"And you, Girion's heir?"

Bard said, "And in return for your help against the Orcs, what are you asking?"

"Abide by my declaration. Accept my standing claim as King Of The Mountain," Smaug said.

Thorin wanted to object again. He also knew Gandalf would rebuke him, reminding all that Smaug would be the more effective on their side rather on the side of The Enemy.


	4. Biding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At his age, Smaug can wait.

No attack struck Laketown.

_Let them fear,_ was Smaug's thought as he flew - unseen - past the Men-peopled town. _Let them hear of my coming, and worry when I shall turn them and their home to cinders. Let their fear fester in their minds. Then, only then..._ a draconic laugh tickling his throat for the first time in far too long.

"Soon," Smaug warned the winds.


	5. AU - never retracting the offer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if Smaug hadn't decided against letting Bilbo take the Arkenstone?

"I'm almost tempted to..." and watched the play of reactions and thoughts cross the little one's face. "Yes. I shall," Smaug declared.

"Your omnipotence?" asked Barrel-Rider.

"Take the Arkenstone. I demand an oath in return: Oakenshield may not move against me, nor may any who exist under his rule."

"That - that sounds reasonable."

"Reasonable?" _Beneficent. Tolerant. Those among others, were words I expected in your flattery, strange-scented companion of Dwarves._

"I -"

"Are you here to retake this mountain as well?"

"'Get the Arkenstone' I was told," said him from Under-Hill. Not a lie, that much.

"Good. For all here remains my own. Surely the Arkenstone is worth that and an oath," Smaug said. _They wish a kingdom, let them dig it anew._

"Surely," said Riddle-Maker.


	6. Infixing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tauriel gets an epithet. One could argue it is more misunderstanding than deserved: Tauriel the Incȳnus.

_'Incȳnus' he called me,_ Tauriel thought as she stood atop the roof of the Laketown house furthest toward the center of the lake, and thus gave the greatest arc of vision for any who like she wished to stand watch. She stood here to avert a third probing strike by any bands or parties of Orcs or others wishing hostilities.

_Orcs rarely speak. And when they do, more they taunt or mock or curse. But they do so unfailingly in a language known to all. So...why did one of those Orcs in that recent probing spit at me the word 'Incȳnus'?_

No bird called. No fish rippled the waters. No deer rustled in the woods.

* * *

"Curious," Gandalf said when he was made aware of this latest incursion by the Orcs.

"Orcs are dogged," Legolas said. "If permitted to slink back to their holes, they will inevitably return."

Tauriel thought, _Was that not so nearly the argument I presented to your father our king Thranduil, on why we should clear the castle of the Necromancer and not simply the wood?_ but said nothing of that.

"While that tends to be true, it was not what struck me as curious," Gandalf said. "Your foe was well-traveled, then, to judge from his word."

"More than us?" Fili asked.

"Much, for he spoke an epithet which could only have come from Harad, far to the south. By the people there, I am called Incánus - _North-spy_. They had other names, less fit for the ears of company."

"And incyynus?" Kili asked.

"'Incȳnus," Gandalf said, considering it. "Not entirely dissimilar from my own name... West-spy. Yes, West-spy it is."

"A reference to my Elven state?" Tauriel asked.

"An Elf, surrounded on all sides by the habitations of Men, yes, to those of Harad, I believe that would qualify for their broad definition of a spy."

A small smile quirked the two corners of her lips as Tauriel thought of and asked, "And what would they call our Dwarven fellows?"

"Under-spies," Legolas offered in the spirit of ease and humor understandable by Elves and Dwarves alike.

"One might assume so," Gandalf said, one of the many in the room who smiled. "In truth, I do not know if the tongues of Harad consider 'below' to be a direction in the same way as 'north' and 'west' are."

The roar of Smaug, airborne and mocking, interrupted the conversation, and returned it to something Thorin felt more at ease partaking of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Even more poorly attested is the language of Harad: Gandalf on one occasion said his name "in the south" was Incánus; according to one source this is a word from the language of the Haradrim, meaning "North-spy"."_ -from the answer to the question [How many languages did Tolkien make?](http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/howmany.htm).


End file.
